An Iraqi response to the President's speech

And more specifically, the intention to destroy the Abu Ghraib. My first thought was to wonder how it would help to destory one prison while building another. It's still a prison, right? Seems the Iraqis don't get it either:

Although some members of Iraq's governing council have called for the jail to be knocked down, interim Interior Minister Samir al-Sumaidy says instead he wanted it to be more open to inspection, after the publication of photographs revealed the abuse and humiliation of inmates by US guards.

"While I can understand the wish to abolish Abu Ghraib, to remove the memory and the stain on the reputation of those who perpetrated the criminal acts against its prisoners, I personally don't think a building itself has a meaning, positive or negative," Mr Sumaidy said.

"The building is not guilty. The building has nothing to do with the crimes. If it was turned into a museum or monument so people do not forget the crimes committed by Saddam Hussein, that would be a better idea."

And these messages I think, was directed toward Rush Limbaugh and Weekly Standard online editor Jonathan V. Last.

Mahmud Othman, a Kurd sitting on the US-installed governing council says he wanted the prison to be turned into a museum to the crimes that took place there under former president Saddam Hussein's regime and US guards.
Human rights activists also echoed concerns that demolishing the building ignored the wider picture.

"The most important thing is not to destroy Abu Ghraib, but to implement the Geneva Conventions, so what happened at Abu Ghraib does not happen at another prison," Hamza al-Kafi from the Iraqi Association of Human Rights said.

"I think announcing it will be demolished is a purely symbolic decision so people forget what happened as quickly as possible."

Alaa Mekki from the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni political group, says "it's not only about knocking down the walls. The maltreatment and illegal practices have to end".